Common Core: A Clandestine Disaster

Review of The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids, by Joy Pullmann (Encounter Books, March 14, 2017), 280 pp.; $24.72 on Amazon.com: ISBN-10: 1594038813, ISBN-13: 978-1594038815

I have reviewed a dozen books on Common Core, all deploring it and all very good, but Joy Pullmann takes the reader to a new level of understanding of the inner workings and political backstory of this insidious effort to transform our children into mind-numbed robots and sap them of their creative spirit.

Common Core’s Clandestine Origins

Beginning in 2001, the federal government’s No Child Left Behind program mandated schools focus on standardized tests in math and reading in exchange for significant penalties for not toeing the line and, in Pullmann’s words, “a gush of federal funds.”

Instituted in 2010 and after, Common Core, the national standards dictating what a student should know at the end of each grade level, does not build a solid foundation of cultural knowledge and practical skills. It replaces thought-provoking fiction with doctrinaire informational texts and jettisons proven math techniques in favor of convoluted processes unknown to earlier generations.

Of even greater concern is the way the government pulled off the standardized takeover through clandestine activities, which took years to formulate, without exposure to skilled educators, concerned parents, or elected officials. It was all made possible by nonprofit organizations, the bulk of them heavily financed by Bill Gates, whose fortune enabled him to force on children his own uneducated views on education. Arne Duncan, secretary of education under President Barack Obama, proved to be a skilled coconspirator with previous ties to Gates.

Fact-Filled Exposé

Pullmann invested four years crisscrossing the nation to talk to parents, teachers, legislators, and despicable leftist goon squads, the latter of whom resemble characters out of George Orwell’s 1984 with their constant attempts to remold society in their narrow-minded vision. The Common Core proponents largely remained silent, but Pullmann uncovers the entire plot against our children and supports every fact in this book, which includes 485 detailed endnotes.

The Education Invasion reads like a mystery novel, and the reader will wish it were fiction. Pullmann brings the reader to classrooms with her as she describes exactly how Common Core was sold, implemented, and imposed on our children—in spite of so many warrior parents fighting vigorously against it.

Methodology Replaces Content

Common Core has removed detailed content from teaching colleges in favor of methodology proponents of the standards claim will work across any discipline, Pullmann reports. For instance, they invented a technique called “close reading,” which teaches a student to rely only on the words in the text (they no longer use the word “book”) to gain understanding. The new standards require outside knowledge not be used in understanding a work, in order not to disadvantage students from disadvantaged environments, where a variety of books may be less available.

Standardized Tests and Data Mining

Grading methods under Common Core are tied to standardized tests, which were developed by well-paid nonprofit organizations and never tested in any meaningful way to prove their efficacy. In California, where the teachers union rules largely unopposed, the lack of transparency in the construction of tests was easily ignored, but in other states, many political battles occurred, Pullmann reports.

The greatest uproar has occurred over the fact the standardized tests require students to list a wide variety of personal data for a centralized database. Big Brother tiptoes around the controversy by commissioning nonprofit organizations to maintain the databases.

Parents across the country have attempted to opt their children out of the standardized tests, and Pullmann includes a detailed account of a mother’s hard-fought efforts to exclude her daughter from the tests in Massachusetts, a struggle repeated across the country, as evidenced by the fact Truth in American Education, a website for similarly distressed parents, was accessed 49,882 times during the 2013–14 school year.

In response to these expressions of concern, Duncan personally threatened federal government action against states with high opt-out rates.

Dissenters Abused

The number of Common Core state repeal bills tracked by the National Conference of State Legislatures has now passed 700. Behind each is a small army of zealous parents who want better for their children.

As you might expect, they have taken a lot of abuse. A man in Baltimore was arrested for resisting an eviction from an education hearing for complaining Common Core was dumbing down his children. Pullmann provides numerous such examples.

As dissent mounted, the federal government used large amounts of taxpayer money to finance public-relations campaigns to convince the public Common Core is benign. Many private foundations also participated in these PR initiatives using government grant money. To hide from the opposition to Common Core, 25 of the 42 states now using Common Core have renamed their standards.

Downfall and Success

Pullmann includes in her book numerous sad stories of wonderfully dedicated teachers who have chosen to leave the profession rather than subject their students to the harmful, regimented education and meaningless tests now required. Pullmann also details the tremendous success of many parent-run private schools and charter schools that rely upon common sense, creativity, and long-established practices for raising intelligent young people.

It will be difficult to undo the harm Common Core has already caused, but a journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step.